Does your ISP give you a data allowance?

[human_male]

My ISP allows five gigs a month downloading or uploading then they cut my speed to dial up. If I want a larger allowance I have to get a more expensive package. I suspect this is just a way for them to charge more and there isn't a technical reason to limit the allowance. I don't know though, so I'm asking.

If yours does where do you live and is it common practice there?

Thanks very much.

I'm really sick of it. I tend to use mine up quickly every month downloading Stargate Atlantis and Torchwood. I checked some other ISPs here and (as is typical in this country as no one seems to know what competition actually means) they have the same thing for the exact same price.

 

[SweetErika]

No, my ISP doesn't have a limit, although I'm sure if one were to have a business in their home or something that used an outrageous amount of bandwidth or wanted to connect more than five computers, they'd make the person upgrade to one of their business packages. We download stuff often and have never had a problem apart from it being a bit slower at peak usage times.

Most of our ISPs base their pricing on speed. My cable ISP has like two speeds (up to 6 and 12 Mbps, I think, but the 6 has "bursts" of 12, apparently), and the phone company has something like four speeds (up to 1.5, 7, 12 or 20 Mbps). Until recently, they had a 256 or 512 option, too, I believe. Cable runs about $45/month IF one also has cable TV or phone, and the 7Mbps DSL is $37/month with a phone package (which is also about $40/month) AND a two-year contract, and $50 for month-to-month subscribers with a qualifying phone package.

Your ISP may actually have that limit because they don't have the best network and are afraid too many downloads will slow the system for everyone. And when you think about it, it's not completely unfair to have packages based on the amount of bandwidth one needs; why should a casual user who basically just uses his email and surfs the web pay the same amount as the guy who's using much more of the pipeline by constantly uploading videos and downloading movies, music and software? I'm not saying you're wrong to be frustrated at all or that the 5GB limit is particularly reasonable; there is some logic to having different pricing for different needs, however.

Have you looked into how much it'll cost to go to a higher package? Are you using DSL?

Is collusion/price-fixing illegal there? Here, if they believe companies are getting together to fix prices so the consumer doesn't benefit from competition, the companies are investigated and possibly sued by the government (although it can be difficult to make the case).

 

[webber1998]

Where I live, ONLY comcast cable and satellite are available for broadband. No DSL, no fiber....

Comcast here has no limits. Verizon didn't with their DSL when I lived 30 miles down the road.

But since I absolutely despise COMCAST and refuse to give them one single dime, I use the satellite service. Hard fast penalties if we go over the allowance.

 

[SweetErika]

Where I live, ONLY comcast cable and satellite are available for broadband. No DSL, no fiber....

Comcast here has no limits. Verizon didn't with their DSL when I lived 30 miles down the road.

But since I absolutely despise COMCAST and refuse to give them one single dime, I use the satellite service. Hard fast penalties if we go over the allowance.

Webber, I'm interested in satellite, so maybe you can answer some of my questions:

Which provider do you use? I've seen a lot of HughesNet commercials lately (Why couldn't they come up with a better name? )

What's the allowance for your satellite?

Does your internet connection get spotty or go down when the weather's bad?

Does it require a dish?

What's the approximate monthly cost? And were there lots of equipment/setup fees?

 

[webber1998]

Webber, I'm interested in satellite, so maybe you can answer some of my questions:

Which provider do you use? I've seen a lot of HughesNet commercials lately (Why couldn't they come up with a better name? )

What's the allowance for your satellite?

Does your internet connection get spotty or go down when the weather's bad?

Does it require a dish?

What's the approximate monthly cost? And were there lots of equipment/setup fees?

I use WildBlue. Actually, I'm an engineer and was involved with some of the HughesNet development...a number of years ago... LOL....

My allowance is 12GIG's in any 30 day period.

The satellite goes in and out MORE then for instance, my DirecTV does. Especially if there are storms. Not to bad with just rain or cloudy weather though.

Definitely I would NOT consider the Sat broadband though. It does do fairly good with downloads but slow with webs sites that have LOTS of pushes and pulls of the data, embedded stuff. News sites, for instance. Have to remember that the data stream is broadband, but the latency getting requests TO and FROM the satellite is relatively long.

The dish is a little bigger then the DirecTV dish and the installation, including the equipment was $235.00. I got a $235 credit for my first few months. The monthly fee is $69.

Overall, the service has been pretty good. I consider it more money for MUCH less service then lets say the DSL that I had at my previous home. And significantly less then my cable at work.

But my big thing is that I HATE comcast so... I will gladly pay the extra for how much I use the internet at home...

 

[SweetErika]

I use WildBlue. Actually, I'm an engineer and was involved with some of the HughesNet development...a number of years ago... LOL....

My allowance is 12GIG's in any 30 day period.

The satellite goes in and out MORE then for instance, my DirecTV does. Especially if there are storms. Not to bad with just rain or cloudy weather though.

Definitely I would NOT consider the Sat broadband though. It does do fairly good with downloads but slow with webs sites that have LOTS of pushes and pulls of the data, embedded stuff. News sites, for instance. Have to remember that the data stream is broadband, but the latency getting requests TO and FROM the satellite is relatively long.

The dish is a little bigger then the DirecTV dish and the installation, including the equipment was $235.00. I got a $235 credit for my first few months. The monthly fee is $69.

Overall, the service has been pretty good. I consider it more money for MUCH less service then lets say the DSL that I had at my previous home. And significantly less then my cable at work.

But my big thing is that I HATE comcast so... I will gladly pay the extra for how much I use the internet at home...

Thanks for sharing your experience!

We don't like Comquack either, but I'm unwilling to pay significantly more for limited, slower, less reliable internet. If I wanted slower and less reliable, I'd go with DSL.

One good thing I can say about Comquack is that they haven't moved their call centers offshore, like just about everyone else has. Of course for what they're charging, they should have no problem keeping the jobs here.

 

[PertPerth]

My ISP allows five gigs a month downloading or uploading then they cut my speed to dial up. If I want a larger allowance I have to get a more expensive package. I suspect this is just a way for them to charge more and there isn't a technical reason to limit the allowance. I don't know though, so I'm asking.

If yours does where do you live and is it common practice there?

Thanks very much.

I'm really sick of it. I tend to use mine up quickly every month downloading Stargate Atlantis and Torchwood. I checked some other ISPs here and (as is typical in this country as no one seems to know what competition actually means) they have the same thing for the exact same price.

They call the slowing down "shaping". Once you have reached your download limit for the month they will shape you - unless you opt to pay for extra down load with more speed. Why? Because it costs them more (user traffic, thus needing to update cables etc etc). It's quite a common practise and means that people don't get an unexpected nasty bill at the end of each month.

I use an internet phone - only have ADSL and no actual phone line. A few times the network has been "full" and I've not been able to make or receive calls.

 

[akazie]

My ISP has a download limited of 10 gigs per month at 1.5MB and then we are shaped down to 64 kps for $60 a month

 

[LFO]

Comcast just changed their AUP:

This is their response to getting in trouble wit the FCC:



Dear Comcast High-Speed Internet Customer,

We appreciate your business and strive to provide you with the best online experience possible. One of the ways we do this is through our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). The AUP outlines acceptable use of our service as well as steps we take to protect our customers from things that can negatively impact their experience online. This policy has been in place for many years and we update it periodically to keep it current with our customers' use of our service.

On October 1, 2008, we will post an updated AUP that will go into effect at that time.

In the updated AUP, we clarify that monthly data (or bandwidth) usage of more than 250 Gigabytes (GB) is the specific threshold that defines excessive use of our service. We have an excessive use policy because a fraction of one percent of our customers use such a disproportionate amount of bandwidth every month that they may degrade the online experience of other customers.

250 GB/month is an extremely large amount of bandwidth and it's very likely that your monthly data usage doesn't even come close to that amount. In fact, the threshold is approximately 100 times greater than the typical or median residential customer usage, which is 2 to 3 GB/month. To put it in perspective, to reach 250 GB of data usage in one month a customer would have to do any one of the following:

* Send more than 50 million plain text emails (at 5 KB/email);
* Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song); or
* Download 125 standard definition movies (at 2 GB/movie).

And online gamers should know that even the heaviest multi- or single-player gaming activity would not typically come close to this threshold over the course of a month.

In addition to modifying the excessive use policy, the updated AUP contains other clarifications of terms concerning reporting violations, newsgroups, and network management. To read some helpful FAQs, please visit http://help.comcast.net/content/faq/Frequently-Asked-Questions-about-Excessive-Use.

Thank you again for choosing Comcast as your high-speed Internet provider.